The present invention relates to beverage extracting and dispensing machines for use with flattened round cartridges containing ground coffee or other brewable products such as freeze-dried coffee, tea, broth and the like.
Cartridges of this kind, which have recently come into usage, comprise a hollow body with a substantially cylindrical sidewall and upper and lower endwalls. The upper and lower endwalls are grid-like, perforate or porous to be permeable to water, while the sidewall is imperforate and substantially rigid. The cartridge body is economically made of a plastics material adapted for use with foodstuffs.
Cartridges of the above kind are sold in sealed packages of the blister type which have the advantage of being highly hygienical. These packages are usually in the form of strips having a series of blisters each of which contains a single cartridge.
The cartridges are adapted for use in more or less conventional, manually operated espresso machines, but also in automatic, coin-operated brewing machines. In the latter case the cartridges must be unpacked prior to being stacked in a magazine inside the machine cabinet. The unpacked cartridges in the magazine are exposed to dirt and contamination.
Moreover, the existing coin-operated brewing machines are rather complicated and costly, since they incorporate, in addition to a brewing assembly, a transfer mechanism for transferring each time a new cartridge from the magazine to a brewing station and a used cartridge from the brewing station to a waste receptacle. They also incorporate control means which are operated by the insertion of a coin to cause the transfer mechanism and the brewing assembly to accomplish the respective working cycles in order to dispense the beverage.
An example of a transfer mechanism of the above kind is disclosed in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 26 07 612 published Sept. 1, 1977.
Coin-operated brewing machines requiring the insertion of a cartridge by the user in addition to the insertion of a coin or token to start their operation could incorporate less complicated mechanisms. However, such machines would be impractical from the users' point of view.